


For the Love of Fluff

by Reptile_Wing



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: For those with pets - if you want to cuddle them afterwards I am SO with you, Hopefully canon-compliant, I cried while writing this, I needed one by the end as well, Katsuki Yuuri Needs a Hug, M/M, Mention of Vi-chan, Please don't post this on another site, Post-Canon, Victor and Makka make everything better, introductions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25951204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reptile_Wing/pseuds/Reptile_Wing
Summary: Yuuri's finally managed to get to Russia, where he'll live (and train) with Victor!Yuuri's seen Victor's apartment on televised interviews, and in photos published in various magazines, so he goes in believing he knows what it'll feel like to be there.Yuuri could not have been more wrong.[CW: As this is canon-compliant, and they both have/ have had dogs, this short includes a mentions of Victor/ Vi-chan (Yuuri's dog who died before the 'Banquet of Destiny') and if that part is problematic for readers, I'm sorry - just know that I cried while writing it, and I hadn't even originally plotted it to be 'a thing' ... it just happened!]
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this for a while, and thought that pushing it around and poking it in places was doing no more real 'good' - for it or me - so I'm doing the mommy-hen thing and gently encouraging it to go out into the world ... to see if it finds itself some good friends.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys it! Feel free to leave a comment and let me know if I screwed up on any canon-based details that can be edited at a later date!
> 
> Have a great day!

Yuuri's first week in St. Petersburg was spent in just as much awe of his new natural surroundings as it was in getting used to the apartment Victor took a very jet-lagged Japanese skater home to.

He could remember taking his shoes off immediately once inside the front room, jaw dropping as he looked around at items Yuuri was, as a fan, familiar with seeing in photo after photo and the occasional interview. But now he was there … and these items were there and something bubbled into life in the back of his brain like a newborn thought even as his plane-cramped and sock-covered toes buried themselves against the carpeting.

"What do you think, Yuuri," the Russian skater asked, a touch of nerves showing in his tone.

"It's ... it's big," came the quick response. The ceiling alone seemed taller than he'd imagined.

"It's been called many things," Victor remarked, Makka seated beside him and head cocked in confusion like her owner’s. Yuuri would have found the pair cute, if he’d been gazing their way. Certainly would have taken the opportunity to call them both ‘cute’ and snap a picture he had little inclination to share with the rest of the world. “’Big' is not one I'm used to."

Yuuri blushed, still unsure if Victor at all realized the full extent of his fanboyness. "I mean to say that of course it's big - it's a penthouse that takes up nearly a quarter of the floor entirely," Yuuri answered, "and they try showing it off in pictures from time to time, whether it's really all that appropriate for them to." His nose wrinkled as the offending articles flitted through his mind with the remark.

"That upsets you?" Victor watched as Makka padded over next to Yuuri as he stood in the middle of the entertainment room where Victor kept his large screen tv, movie collection, and music collection. Yuuri looked as if he simultaneously wanted to touch things and was afraid to. "Yuuri?"

Yuuri's eyes were unfocused as he followed around from a double-sized balcony door, past the entertainment center, and across to the seating area with a couch, coffee table and cushioned chairs; the room was nothing but white walls and ceiling, along with beige carpet and a smattering of furniture when you really thought it through. And was he crazy or did everything around him look as if it hadn’t been moved for months? Dusted, yes, but not truly touched. Yuuri could understand the place being untouched while Victor traveled, but this nearly looked abandoned.

"Yuuri?"

Yuuri gasped when Makka began to slowly lick her rough tongue up along his palm, and dropped to his knees to hug her and allow the poodle access to his face, glasses getting knocked to the carpet.

Victor smiled lightly as Yuuri scratched behind the old dog’s ear, obviously as in love with her as Victor was himself, and the sight made the older skater begin to shake with emotion even as his feet closed the distance between the door and the couch. “Yuuri, was there something else you wanted to say?”

The jet-haired young man waited until Makka had flopped down into his lap for tummy rubs, taking in a breath before his caramel-brown eyes gazed up at Victor's own blue ones. “I … they call this your home, Vitya,” he uttered, eyes squinting around and realizing that he’d overlooked what was likely a nearby fireplace, “but it isn’t, is it?”

“It’s my apartment,” Victor stated, dropping down to sit onto his heels while he picked Yuuri’s glasses up, fingers running gently over the ear pieces and metal hinges, rubbing a smudge off the right lens using a bit of the blue-gray sweater he’d worn to the airport. “I do own it.”

Yuuri took the cleaned glasses gratefully, and blinked. “So where are pictures of your family? Of those close to you?”

He motioned around, and it was clear he was pointing out the smattering of poster-sized flower pictures that made the place seem all the more 'museum-like'. Victor smiled softly. “Those ones are all in my bedroom.”

Yuuri blinked once more. "I don't remember seeing any in pictures."

"It was the one room Yakov agreed I could say was off limits," Victor said softly, a genuine smile spreading on his face, eyes alight. "He lets me lock it and those writing articles on me are told the guest room is mine." Taking Yuuri’s hand in his own, the 28 year old dutifully waited while his beautiful girl got to her feet, relinquishing her ‘second daddy’s’ lap before leading them to the guest room. “See, the guest room has a bathroom attached as well, so it would be easy to pass it off as my own.”

Yuuri realized that he was quite familiar with seeing the room he and Victor were standing near – even the wallpaper had not seemed to have changed greatly over the years, and the 24 year old found himself wondering if the curtains remained drawn unless the room was actually needed, bathroom indeed on the right hand side of it as was described. “So, I suppose this is where I need to bring my bags,” he asked, hardly daring to believe that he’d be laying his head down on a bed he’d partially been dreaming about nearly half his life.

“No,” Victor said quickly, smiling, pulling gently on Yuuri’s hand as Makka woofed at a door a bit further down and on the left of the hall. “You get to stay in here with me and Makka, Lyubimyy*, where noone will disturb you.”

Yuuri watched, as if in a dream, as Victor unlocked and then opened the door to reveal what could only be a King-sized bed not-quite centered in the middle of the room; a cabinet up against the far wall displaying all of Victor’s gold medals. Makka had a dog bed there next to the cabinet, and a door in each direction leading off from the bedroom proper.

Here there were pictures that caught Yuuri's eye - one wall has nothing but posters of various skaters, all positioned to lead the eye toward a shadow box containing a small, worn pair of skates. "My first pair," Victor says in response to an unasked question, smiling when Yuuri looks his way.

"Mom has mine on display back home," comes Yuuri's own quiet response as his cheeks color, "alongside my first pair of shoes and pair of glasses." He saw Victor give a heart-shaped smile and it warmed him up inside.

"Then I'll have to ask Mama Katsuki to show me where they are, the next time we visit," Victor remarked, unaware that Yuuri's face has become nearly tomato-shade red as he continues to explore the room.

Above Makka's bed is a series of pictures that seem to age her as the eye moves upward. Yuuri places trembling fingers on the glass covering a picture of a teenage Victor sleeping curled up with a tiny puppy, Victor’s long hair fanning out over her like a blanket, and his voice trembled as another name slipped past wind-chapped lips. "Vichan."

Victor felt something akin to the wind getting knocked out of him, like a backwards ripple of what he knew waited for him when … no, he can’t even say it mentally to himself, but this isn’t even the first time it has hit the skater: the first time was months ago when Makka got into the buns at Yuuri’s home, and Mari had to take him to the vet. He remembered the desperate and anguished look on Yuuri’s face as he all but pushed Victor out the door and closer to the airport, pleading with him to go back to Japan.

All for Makka.

No, it wasn’t all for Makka.

When his precious poodle was out of harms way, Victor took a few minutes to collect himself as Mari helped him get Makka into the back portion of the van they used for the Hot Spring – she had insisted Makka get to be near Victor on the ride home – and he told her it reminded him of how insistent Yuuri had been that he get there in the first place.

“That’s no surprise,” Mari uttered, lighting a cigarette during a long red light, “ever since Vichan … well, don’t be surprised if he acts toward Makka like a worried mother hen.”

Victor had blinked, confused, and only brought it back up once the trio were on their way back into the Katsuki house. Mari had watched Victor help Makka onto a large plush dog bed, and then said two words: “follow me.”

The shrine had not gone unnoticed by Victor earlier on during his stay with the Katsuki family, but something had always kept him from asking about it, like an unnamed inner dread tied his tongue. Now he found himself before it, with Mari standing next to him, and her fingers slid through her hair before she looked his way.

“This is Vichan,” she said, pointing to a picture of a poodle not all that unlike Makka, and Victor felt a pinch in his chest. If Mari noticed, she didn’t let it stop her words from coming. “Yuuri named him ‘Victor’ … called him ‘Vichan’, and had to leave him here when he went to train in Detroit.”

By now Victor was very aware of the fact that Yuuri could barely afford the plane tickets he currently bought, and taking a dog around with you can nearly double that, surely. He thought of all the times he’d had to leave Makka with Lilia or – even worse – at a kennel while he was traveling, and his heart broke for Yuuri. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he managed to somehow hold them back.

Until Mari opened her mouth once again.

“About a week before the last GPF, Vichan started having trouble getting around – it was like he was drunk at random times of the day – and none of us knew what was happening,” she breathed, “Yuuri was in no financial or time-related position to be able to come home at the time, had promised to come after the competition, and I’d gotten Vichan a vet appointment … and then three days before the skating started I … found Vichan in Yuuri’s room on the floor … and he wouldn’t move when I called his name.”

Victor felt the tears burn then, and tilted his head enough to see that Mari was taking a deep drag on her cigarette, trying to calm herself down. He quickly thought back to the last Grand Prix and suddenly Drunken Banquet Yuuri caused his heart to throb all over again. To lose a pet, not to mention a skating competition, and have to go there and even pretend to socialize!? To have to be around others at all when your heart is shattered into tiny pieces!?

To have liquor as the only thing capable of giving your bleeding soul the splash of courage it needed to reach out to someone you thought was beyond your reach!?

Yuuri sniffles, and finds Makka glued to his right side, woofing softly as Victor reaches around him from behind, showing off his wallet. Yuuri blinks. "V - Victor?"

"You have Vichan's picture in your wallet, right Yuuri?"

He nods, just barely able to get to it while still letting Makka glue herself to him, and thumbs the picture portion open straight to one of Vichan happily licking Yuuri's face the day they'd brought him home. He smiles through his tears, showing it to Victor.

Arms still around Yuuri, Victor opened his own wallet to a picture Yuuri had to double-blink at; it isn't of Makka as a puppy, and he can only tell that because it shows his own room and his hair, not Victor's. The photo is one of Yuuri asleep with Vichan on the floor, also from that first day. "Mari said your dad wouldn't let Vichan sleep up on the bed with you," Victor uttered softly.

"He said 'no'," Yuuri whispered, "and I said 'then I'll sleep on the floor with Vichan ... so he's not lonely."

Victor doesn't say a thing as Yuuri crumbles. Makka climbs into his lap, dutifully going for the tears on the bespectacled man's face, and Victor simply leans his own head down on Yuuri's shoulder.

The only indication of time passing ends up being the sun peeking through Victor's blinds at a lower angle, and neither he nor Yuuri move until Makka demands freedom. Victor lets Yuuri get to his feet first, and then gets to his own only when his boyfriend moves to the next set of pictures in the room.

Another wall has nothing but pictures of Victor with Chris, and Yuuri finds himself grinning at the fact that only about half of them are shots he recognizes from one social media or another. "A Best Friends Wall," he breathes, and notices the chuckle that bursts from behind him.

When Yuuri turned to face him, Victor smiled, eyes still visibly puffy from the Doggo Moment. "Chris is very fun to hang out with."

Yuuri nods, turning his head to find one last set of photos with people like Yakov and Lilia, Yuri and Georgi, Mila and others; Victor's Russian Skating 'family' to be sure. A small chuckle at Mila lifting Yuri above her head in one shot lifted his spirit up again, and he smiled Victor's way once more.

"To the left is our closet," Victor breathed, grinning as he indicated with a turn of his head, "and to the right is our bathroom."

Again he watched silently as Yuuri continued to explore, looking back at Victor every few seconds like a little kid on Christmas day.

The bathroom was twice the size of the one attached to that guest room, if one could guess, especially as the other just sported a shower. The Master Bath, however, had both a modern walk-in shower - the kind Yuuri could already imagine giving a person a 'tropical rain' rather than a shower head they need to mess with manually - and a tub large enough that Makka would fit in it with him and Victor, with space to spare.

Pictures on the walls showcase beaches from around the world - vials of sand near each one. Yuuri feels tears welling up when he recognizes the largest photo shows off part of the beach in Hasetsu, and his thumb caresses the jar next to it like a friend, a tiny bit of his homesickness melting inside his heart.

A look in the closet next leads Yuuri to gawk at a walk in closet that had to be the size of the guest room in its entirety, though only half of it seemed populated with clothes. Confused, he turned to find Victor in the doorway. "What ... Victor?"

"This is your half, Yuuri," came the answer, Victor wrapping his arms around Yuuri's waist. "I had just enough time to rearrange my things before you got here."

"You didn't have to," Yuuri breathed, voice small, "I mean, the guest room's good enough."

"But you aren't a guest, Yuuri," Victor said softly, pouting a little as Makka once more found Yuuri's hand and licked at his fingers to get his attention. "See - even Makka knows!"

"Knows what, Vitya?" Yuuri heard himself say the words, while his brain was still stuck on processing the fact that Victor was giving up half of his closet space to him.

"You've made this a home," Victor responded, "a real home, for me ... for Makkachin ... and, hopefully, for you as well."


	2. Steeping in Affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makka is thirsty, and enlists a sleep-addled Yuuri for aid.

Late the first night he was in Russia, Makka whined and nosed Yuuri silly in the face. "Hai, hai*," he muttered briefly, sitting up to find the poodle very much in _his_ lap. Viktor lay beside him, and Yuuri wondered if there was something meaningful about Makka waking him and not the Russian skating legend she’d grown up with.

Scrubbing his eyes and reaching for his glasses, Yuuri proceeded to follow Makka as they padded out to the kitchen. At that point the Japanese young man ran fingers through his messy black hair and muttered something that vaguely seemed to be half English and half Japanese before Makkachin woofed at him. "Shhh," he breathed, bending down before the beautiful nut-brown poodle, “let’s be quiet, sweet girl. Vitya's sleeping."

Makka licked Yuuri's hand, and all but pounced at her water dish, request clear with a whine.

"Mizu**, Makka?” Yuuri asked the dog softly, stretching to grab the dish off the floor at the same time that he scratched her behind the ear, “hai, hai.” Eyelids heavy, he was grateful all she needed was water, because he realized he wasn’t entirely sure where Victor kept Makkachin’s food. Still, while she was swiftly finishing off her own water, he decided to make himself some tea.

He could remember coming across the drawer earlier, and realizing that Victor only had black tea, when Yuuri was feeling homesick for something more like green tea, but even black was better than no tea at all. Tea out on the counter, the skater checked on Makka’s progress and heard her whine when the bottom of her bowl appeared bereft of anything wet. “Hai, Makka,” Yuuri breathed, dutifully picking up the bowl and filling it before doing so with the tea pot for himself. “Our little girl’s thirsty this morning, ne***?”

Bowl back in front of her, Makkachin decided to ignore anything that wasn’t water while Yuuri found himself a black mug marbled with red and silver; like so much in Victor’s apartment, it looked brand new, but Yuuri found himself wondering if it actually was brand new for other reasons. His still sleep-muddled mind was thinking on that when warm arms wrapped around him from behind, and Yuuri yelped.

“I thought you’d like that mug,” Victor whispered near an ear, able to feel Yuuri’s heart beating as he held him close, mug safely still on the counter-top. “It reminded me of a certain someone’s hot skating outfit.”

“Yes,” Yuuri said softly, putting a hand up on top of Victor’s, “that would be your outfit,” he remarked with a smirk.

Victor opened his mouth to balk at the statement, and then decided to snuggle closer to his boyfriend. “But Yuuri, it looked so much better on you.”

Yuuri shook his head, both at the statement and at a thought of his own. "I still like the idea of you wearing it," he admitted. Even just looking at the mug’s colors reminded him of the first time he’d seen Victor skate in the outfit, of how that had been the moment when he’d fallen in love with skating, the ice … and Victor. Part of him wondered if Victor would ever have long hair again.

“I feel like you’re trying to recreate it in black,” Victor stated, nuzzling into the hair above Yuuri’s ear softly before Makka pawed at him and nosed her food dish. “Makka, you want a little treat?” Fingers scratching the poodle behind her ears, he left Yuuri’s side only to head to the fridge and grab something small out.

Suddenly Yuuri wasn’t sure if he’d only thought his thoughts on Victor’s hair … or that he’d said them aloud. If he’d just thought it, and Victor wasn’t responding to it, was there any reason to acknowledge it? But if he did say it aloud, and Victor was responding to it, would it look bad if Yuuri didn’t continue the conversation? “I … Victor?”

The silver-haired skater returned to him after petting Makka and refilling her water dish, wrapping Yuuri up in his arms. “Yuuri?”

Victor blinked a bit and though Yuuri was sure it was in confusion, the young Japanese man found it enchanting. “Victor,” he repeated, forcing down an obstinate yawn. He felt slim fingers carding through his ordinary black strands of hair and then Victor chuckled. Victor chuckled and it sounded like the wind-chimes back home at the onsen. Yuuri blushed at the thought, dipping his head before thinking could stop him, kissing that warm palm.

Victor lifted Yuuri’s head and seemed to will their eyes to meet. "My Yuuri."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * hai = yes  
> ** mizu = water  
> *** ne = right/ correct
> 
> Yes, yes I DID make sleepy Yuuri cute and language-fluid (would that be the correct term for it?) .

**Author's Note:**

> * Lyubimyy = Russan for 'Beloved' (masculine)


End file.
